Assemblage Radiant
by Vorona
Summary: During and after the events of 'New Canaan', Iris is anguished and absolved as Sofie and Justin return home. Now a potential alternate third season.
1. I

The Black & White - Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. . .unless it's for legal reasons, like this one, where I have to acknowledge the Wizard Dan Knauf as the owner/originator of the Emerald Carnivàle, and HBOz as the land in which I play but do not lay claim to.   
Sign the Waiver - Heavily incestuous. Also contains spoilers for the S2 finale, _New Canaan_. In fact it begins right in the thick of things. . .

**Assemblage Radiant**  
_by Vorona_

* * *

It seemed as though time itself had stilled at Justin's command. Iris couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't move - could do nothing but watch, paralyzed with horror, as her brother slumped forward into Varlyn Stroud's arms. She barely noticed the rocking of the Ferris wheel seat that had so petrified her mere seconds before. 

But then, recovering just as quickly as he had been seized by whatever strange and apparently sourceless pain had taken hold of him, Justin rose up, lifting Stroud by the lapels as he went, growling at the man in hoarse-voiced madness, "See to the girl!" At Stroud's nod, Justin loped off into the crowd. The faithful brethren parted in his path like the Red Sea, breaking in shrieking waves as he made his way to one of the tents.

Iris's eyes trailed him until she found herself being pulled from the Ferris wheel by her brother's bodyguard. Her legs refused to work properly, her knees buckled beneath her; but Stroud kept her from finding the ground, held her up with surprising gentleness and half-carried her over to another of the guards.

"Get her to the house and see that she stays there - Brother Justin's orders," he muttered, handing her off to the other man.

At last coming to her senses, Iris lurched out of the man's arms and grasped Stroud by the shoulder as he began to walk away. "No - I won't—"

He whirled on her, his face contorted in savage impatience. "_I promised him!_"

Iris refused to shrink back. Her jaw set in furious preparation for an onslaught of reproval - _I refuse to be left behind!_ - but something in his eyes stayed her tongue: desperation there, a plea, hidden amongst the ire, for her cooperation. It looked strange in the face of a man such as he. She could almost envision him as a little boy, round-cheeked and crying - _Not the cane! Not the cane, please, Daddy, no! I couldn't help it_—

She released his shoulder, and he turned away before she could see the relief in his eyes turn to gratitude. Feeling the insistant tug of the guard's hand at her elbow, Iris allowed herself to be led away from the carnival. They were halfway to the house when the screams finally ceased. Iris paused, and chanced a glance over her shoulder. Justin was nowhere to be seen among the panicked cloud of people in front of the tent he had entered, nor the confused clusters on its outskirts.

She looked to the valley, knowing it would only be a matter of time before gossip infected the hive. Whatever her brother had done or was doing, the hornets' nest had been stirred.

A bolt of lightning shot from the stars, striking close enough for Iris to feel its heat. The sound was momentarily deafening - _Justin, moaning, clutching at his ears_—

She flinched as if the thought itself had slapped her, then shook her head, working the chipped-off fragment of her control back into place - that dam could not be broken yet, not in front of the guards. She was only a few meters from the house. . .

—_So high - her brother's breaths ragged, muffling even the sound of her own screams - Alexsei_—

She quickened her pace, the hill seeming endless, a mountain to climb—_Ripping open his cassock, exposing - oh, God - gasping for air, great shuddering pulls - black eyes, heart hammering, her brother in pain and she was helpless_—

Mere steps to the porch, the door - she wasn't going to make it—_Dying, he was dying - someone please help please God no - so high, going to fall, dying, oh God please help_—

"This is far enough, gentlemen, thank you."

—_Alexsei!_

The flood loosed upon her like a pack of rabid dogs as she slammed the door. Iris dropped to her knees, caught between a sob and a scream whose conflict in her throat rendered both silent. Her hands shook uncontrollably as she pressed them to her face, fingernails biting into her skin as she fought the urge to scrape them down. Pure fear coursed hot-and-cold in her veins, freezing, burning. All the boiling pits and frigid moors of Hell writhed inside her body as the shell of shock that had encased her mind fell away.

She bowed forward and was sick on the floor through the convulsions of her tears - _Choking, river silt and bile on the banks - They must open their mouths and drown! - her hand crushing her brother's_— Alexsei - Iris's right hand clutched at nothing - where was Alexsei?

—_Crunching metal, twisted steel, Mama screaming and Alexsei like a dead cherub in the air and they were falling, falling for days until_—

The world spiralled around her (couldn't breathe couldn't move), a vortex of anguish collapsing in on its center, her soul. A black buzzing began to blot out her thoughts, and she scrambled not to be buried in it, could almost feel the soil pressing into the beds of her nails - or was that skin?

No - dark house, their house, here, she was here—_My New Canaan_— Alexsei was gone—_Dark house, their house, empty rooms, his bed his scent his ghost he'd left her behind - See to the girl - Make haste to deliver me - I promised him - But Iris, the children who died - rippling crack of a breaking neck - They sent you to kill us - black sins, black eyes, so very high, Be still_—

Iris held her breath, swallowed down a second gag, exhaled slowly.

—_Be still_—

She felt the rubble of her psyche rolling again into place, reforming a heavily cracked but still present wall.

"Be still."

Not her voice. Not from her throat, stuck together and searing.

Iris opened her eyes.

Nothing, no one. Dark house, empty rooms, empty-handed - and blessed quiet in her head. She blinked rapidly. The ticking of the clock on the wall set the pace for her lulling heartbeat. She wasn't certain how many minutes had been inhumed by her grief. Outside, the guards exchanged coarse speculation: _It looked like he was havin' a heart attack or a fit or somethin' _— _The lights're still out - think we ought'a check on her? _— _We wasn't hired ta play nursemaids _—_ I wonder when Brother Varlyn'll be back? _— _Why, you scared? _— _It's his job ta look after the Jill! You heard Brother Justin - See to the girl _— _She ain't been no 'girl' for a while now _— _Suits me fine just the same _— _Hush up, both o'ya; if Brother Justin heard you talk like that about his sister he'd nail yer balls to the cross _— _Jesus, Harvey _— _I said hush up!_

Her eyes darted between the shadows of the foyer as her composure sputtered back to brightness in time with a lightning strike _(forked bolt forked tree forked tongue, a fire in the house of God, a fire in their house _—_ Holy shit, did you see that?)_, muting her umbrageous panic to a placid whistle in the back of her mind.

Iris forced herself to stand on unsteady legs, drew an uneven breath. The sour taste in her mouth at last began to register.

She wasn't quite sure how she made it to the kitchen, realized that she held a glass of water in her hand only when it overflowed under the tap, an unnatural coolness against her skin. She drank it down as if to drown, in greedy gulps, a compulsion she hadn't indulged since childhood. Gasped as she surfaced, felt the chill unfurl from her middle like wings _(his arms, wrapped around her from behind)_.

She'd fought so hard, not only to keep up with but to surpass him, always to remain one step ahead of him. . .and now she was here, closeted like some dusty treasure, kept out of the way. Out of his way. An obstruction he had cut down and crushed beneath his heels without so much as a stumble, a backwards glance.

A saline ache returned to her eyes, this time not from fear, but from failure: her failure. Beyond her, everything was beyond her reach now. Faith and action, so utterly useless, hovered at her sides like empty suitcases, poised for a journey that was going nowhere. Was this what she had worked for? _(You have a destiny. . .)_ By all accounts, it seemed somehow. . .anticlimactic. Certainly nothing like she had imagined. This was it? this was the end?

"Don't cry, Aunt Iris."

The glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the kitchen floor, as she whirled around and found herself face-to-face with a familiar obsidian gaze _(Be still)_.

". . .Sofie?"

It was the only thing Iris could think to call her, although the girl who stood before her little resembled the shy young maid of that morning. This Sofie's face was a phlegmatical mask of familial resemblance, steeped in secret in the bitter black tea of sin so long as to erase the irises of her eyes _(the demon, erasing Iris from his eyes)_.

"What. . .where did you come from?"

Sofie blinked, twice, as if considering the question. "I come from all that was before," she finally decided.

Iris, unsure of what to make of this new development, didn't know how to respond. She'd never guessed, never once imagined. . .

_She has her father's eyes._ The thought, an absurd one in the present state of affairs, nonetheless filled her mind with the reflective fondness with which one might contemplate any relation. It also drew her back, as she was always drawn back, to what was in any situation her foremost concern: "Where is my brother?"

It was difficult to tell, but Sofie's eyes seemed to move, to look down for a moment at the floor before she replied, "He is still."

"He is still? Still what, still alive? Tell me where my brother is!"

The dark gaze narrowed slightly at the demand, but this time Iris would not back down _(Better a wounded lion)_.

But there was no blow, no hissing assault to ground her fears. Instead, if it were possible, Sofie's face softened. "He is waiting for you with an embrace."

Iris's world at once ceased to be as the words sank in, as she sank again to the floor. The black buzzing returned, the swarm of Beelzebub encircling her head in a pestilent halo of noise. She might have whispered her brother's name, or merely heard the echo of a thirty-five-year-old scream.

Sofie crouched down before her, head tilted like a curious vulture.

Lost, all so quickly lost, without warning and despite preparation. Her brother in pain. . .her brother was dead. Over and over again, the notion whipped forty lashes against her skull, all that had mattered that night. Damn prophets, damn religion. Damn fate, damn destiny. Damn trespasses and salvation, strategy, abandonment, God Himself. Her brother in pain. . .her brother was dead.

Weakly, she looked up at her bastard niece. ". . .And will you kill me, too?"

Sofie shook her head.

"_Why not?_" Iris shouted, an angry plea with hands clenched into fists at her sides, a proud prayer.

"I've taken all I need," said Sofie calmly.

"All you need for what? what's going on, _why are you here?_"

"This is my house."

"I don't understand!" Iris's voice slipped an octave as the hollow ache in her chest threatened to give way, to cave in. She wished it would, wished her ribs would splinter and stab, and cut her heart into ribbons that would tie them together again _(Raduga, Irina, vy vidite?)_.

"You will." Sofie lifted a hand and tucked an errant lock of hair almost affectionately behind Iris's ear. "The lost can be found and retrieved. I say when it's over. I say it's not over yet."

_How?_ Iris wanted to ask, but found all her sounds smothered.

Sofie took Iris's hands in her own and carefully uncurled the older woman's fingers. Dark crescents could be seen on her palms where her nails had pierced the skin in grisly mockery of holy marks. Ignoring these, Sofie pressed her hands to Iris's and interlaced their fingers _(a cry, a clasp, damp shivers in the dark of night, Norman and Rose asleep down the hall)_.

"We're in this together."

* * *

_To be continued. . ._

The Fine Print - I think there will only be one more part to this, maybe two, I'm not sure yet. It depends on how far I let my wishful thinking wander. ;) Anyway, like many others, I fully expected Iris to be combing the cornfield for her brother's body at the end of _New Canaan_. It seemed so strange for her to simply be waiting for him at the house, unless there was a third party intervention somewhere along the line. . .

_Raduga, Irina, vy vidite? _- A rainbow, Irina, you see?


	2. II

"Can you feel him?"

Sofie sat on the couch opposite her, thumbing through one of Iris's scrapbooks. She might have appeared bored, if it weren't for the intent look upon her face as she researched her family.

"I can feel them all," Sofie replied.

"Is he. . ." Iris hesitated to ask the question, realizing its ridiculousness, but she had to know: "Is he all right?"

"He is impatient," Sofie muttered, the corners of her mouth tucking up in annoyance, but Iris found an ironic sort of comfort in the girl's honesty. There was no doubt that it was her Alexsei of whom Sofie spoke. Her Alexsei, whose feelings she always knew and shared.

"How much longer?"

"When the carnival has left. Then I'll go."

The carnival. . .Iris had nearly forgotten about it. The cloak of her brother's enemy still hovered over their town, the shadow of the Colossus like a death shroud over their encampments. And she had invited it there, had purchased her brother's assassins and led her lamb to slaughter for a memoriam of only $250.00.

". . .Is he angry with me?"

She'd _had_ to do it - as she always had to do, to take him by the hand and guide him to his destiny. He would never have had the courage to face it on his own _(Remember the nightmares I suffered as a child?)_.

Sofie closed the scrapbook and looked up at her. She was silent for a long moment and seemed to be searching for the words. "He will understand."

Iris closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, no longer knowing who to pray to but praying all the same that the girl spoke the truth.

And so they waited, as the morning star rebelled against the night and grew arrogant and swollen in the sky, turning the stars into transparent phantoms; as light flooded the house through the cracks between the semi-drawn curtains, sinking the rooms in an ominous orange glow. Iris hadn't heard the guards since before Sofie had arrived, and distantly she wondered what had happened to them, if the girl had dispatched them or if they had turned tail on their own.

She busied herself tidying the house, superficially shifting throw pillows and straightening picture frames, as if her brother were merely returning from a trip to a neighboring parrish. It wasn't until she knelt to clean up the small mess she'd left in the foyer the night before that a spike of pain shot from her knees and up through her thighs. Sitting with her back against the wall, she drew her dress up, and was dimly shocked to find her stockings shredded and sticky-dark at the knees. Images of a shattered mirror glittering reflections of shallow crimson rue flashed through her mind, and she thought for a moment that her past penitence had come back to haunt her. Then she remembered the night before, the kitchen, the glass of water exploding on the floor. She hadn't even noticed it at the time.

With surgical determination, she located the fine slivers of glass embedded against her bones. Gritting her teeth against a wince, she yanked the first one from her flesh and held it up to the light. It looked like a shard from a broken church window. Iris wondered which scene it had found depicted in her blood.

The others were easier to remove, save for the last, a crystal needle that had punctured vertically through her skin, so slippery it took her a number of attempts to get a proper grip on it. When at last all the fragments were cupped in her palms, she studied them with a curiosity she had never before possessed.

What if it didn't work?

What if Sofie decided she had misjudged, discovered she'd taken too long, changed her mind?

The contrast of colors was entrancing, red dyeing her thenar, her veins a spindling blue. It had crossed her mind, of course, crucified it, that Justin's destiny did not necessarily ensure his survival. She would not contest God's plan for her brother, she never had. A part of her had even expected his end.

But that had been when she was certain she would follow him immediately thereafter, and bring into being the final turning of the tides in their ever-shifting relationship. Iris did not doubt she would have, had Sofie not emerged last night from the shadows of her virtuous chrysalis.

Justin's whip, freshly oiled, was long enough for a noose; her own kitchen knife was kept sharp enough to cut cleanly through bone and sinew alike. She had expected all of that. . .but she had not expected _this._

She only wanted to see him again, to feel his cheek resting atop her head, his hands pressed to the small of her back.

Her gaze went to Sofie, still sitting calmly in the parlor, another scrapbook open on her lap. Did the girl have it in her, she pondered, to raise them both, if Iris succumbed to her temptations?

If Martha had followed Lazarus, would Jesus not have had pity enough to pull her as well from Purgatory?

_I wish I had made better decisions. . ._

Iris placed the shards in a bureau drawer between two pieces of broken plaster. She finished cleaning the floorboards and pulled a rug over their lingering damp stain.

They waited and they watched, ghosting the front windows, until finally the carnival's monstrous wheel was dismantled one chair, one cord, one crossbeam at a time, and Sofie silently made her way to the back door. Iris followed her so closely her shoes nearly scraped the girl's heels. In the threshold Sofie paused abruptly, turned her head.

"No," she hissed, bristling like a cornered cat. "You can't come with me."

Indignation filled up all the spaces within Iris where anxiety had previously reigned. "Who are you to forbid me? He is my brother—"

"It isn't safe!"

"I don't care about being seen!"

"Then care about being sane, and alive."

Iris's gaze hardened at the threat. "You said you weren't going to kill me."

"Not on purpose," Sofie shrugged, then turned to face Iris directly. Her eyes were imploring, frustration and supplication there warring like the colors of an oil spill rainbow. "What I must do, I must do alone. You cannot. . ." _follow me, see him like this, be harmed;_ the possibilities filled the air in lieu of her voice "You will not be sacrificed. Stay here."

Iris's jaw tightened as she watched her niece depart the porch and make her way down the northwest side of the hill, out of sight of whomever may have been watching from the east. More waiting. This was her punishment, this was her Purgatory, and no, it was not pitied.

Arms folded across her middle, she disappeared again inside the house, as quiet as a tomb, and emptier.

* * *

It was the sound of engines coughing up just enough life to run that drew her to the window some thirty minutes later. The carnival, now fully broken down and moving onward, began to creep along the road like a centipede. It was the sight of what stood on the hill above it that drew Iris to the porch and, despite Sofie's warning, away from the house.

The ancient, gnarled tree - Justin's tree - jutted from the ground like a burnt matchstick, black and charred. An image assaulted her mind: _two skeletons entwined, embracing beneath the lowest arcing arm as ash rained down like gray petals from a blossomless branch. . ._

The decay spread in the cornfield in the valley: the stalks collapsed one row at a time, turned withered and brown in a widening gyre of rot, acre after acre succumbing to a sudden putrefaction that defied all flimsy laws of nature. And it kept growing. Beyond the slowly turning tires of the last carnival truck, through dirt and grass alike it spread like a flash-drought, like a swarm of ants upon a disturbed mound, and as it approached the house Iris realized that this was no trick of her imagination, no fit of foresight - _It isn't safe!_

She took a step back, two, three. Brush and bushes, green trees shrivelled in a snap of autumn; their leaves fell all at once in small brown clouds. Four, five, six. It was mere yards away now, thundering closer, the earth trampled by invisible hooves. _And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. . .¹_ Thirteen, fourteen. Nearly to her toes. Nineteen, twenty.

Iris's feet found the bottom porch step just as the wave encircled the house, surpassed it, leaving in its wake a brittle tawny meadow that stretched as far as her eyes could see, a carousel of ruin.

But there, at its center: two small figures, one kneeling, the other still prostrate and unmoving. . .

_Care about being sane._

Iris couldn't watch, not anymore; knew she wouldn't be able to stand it if he didn't get up, if Armageddon itself was not enough death to give him life.

The door slammed behind her as she went to the bureau, skimmed her fingertips nervously along the cracked glass nestled like flat rubies within it, along the halved mask of the earth's savior and her world's demise _(Leave it)_.

She shut the drawer, nearly catching her fingers between the wood. She sucked them into her mouth as though she had, to cork her shallow breathing; at the creak of hinges coming from the foyer, that breath stopped completely.

Iris froze, afraid to look.

_Open your eyes, it's glorious!_

. . .Oh God. . .

There they were, the dark girl in her pale cotton dress and her blue-eyed brother, looking as though he'd just returned from war.

Returned. Alive.

Iris's eyes fell to the monstrous emblem on his chest, partially obscured by a blue-black star-shaped stain, then to the hiltless blade cradled carefully in Sofie's hands. She thought she might be sick again.

Justin stepped towards her, his lips beginning to curve in a smile.

"Iris—"

She expected the blow even less than he did. Her hand stung with the force of the slap, and he stared at her in pained shock as an angry red mark bloomed along his cheek. But once she started, Iris found she couldn't stop - she struck him again, and again, until her rage grew wild and scattered across his chest, until he caught her wrists and stilled her assault. Then her mouth took over.

"Goddamn it, Justin!" It was possibly the first time the blaspheme had ever leapt from her tongue, as she fought against his hold on her wrists. "Why? why wouldn't you let me protect you? You—" _died, you died, and_ "No one would let me protect you, I couldn't. . .damn it, Alexsei, _why?_"

"Because I had to protect _you,_ I had to keep you safe!" he hissed, but his words were like steam, dissipating before they could scald _(hands around her throat, bruising, tightening - Nyet, nyet! - wrenched away before they could suffocate)_.

"You _lie!_ You wanted me out of the way—"

"Out of the line of fire, yes!"

Iris shook her head, pressing her lips together in an attempt to gate her tears. "How dare you. I _set_ that fire, Alexsei. I've made my choices and _you_ were all of them! I will burn for what I've done, and gladly, because I will be next to you when I do - with or without your consent! You think that you can just push me aside, that I would ever allow that to happen?"

"Irina. . ." He looked furious, his head bent low and close to hers as if he were about to share a secret. But no arcanum left his parted mouth, only verity; and he spoke not in a whisper, but in a growl: "You have led me for as long as I can remember. You've taken me places, beckoned me to wonderful lands and pulled me through those I was loath to traverse, but here - _here_ - is where you must step aside and let me see for myself the road I am travelling, even if that means I must misstep and fall to my knees! You have been my shield from humanity, but you will _not_ be my human shield!" His voice had elevated to a shout with the last sentence, drumming against her ears hard enough to loosen her tears' tentative hold on her eyes. They spilled down her cheeks as again she shook her head.

"You _died_ without me. _Without me,_ Alexsei, _you died without me. Vy umershi bez menya!_"

Justin stared down at her for a moment, a vulnerability in his face that she hadn't seen since she'd forced him to ask for her confession to the fire. Seconds ticked past in tiny eternities.

And then his arms were around her, so tightly around her she wondered how she didn't sink into him completely, and his voice came in a hot whisper against her hair, "_Prostite menya. . ._"

An apology, as well as a promise: always and never again.

She didn't return his embrace at first, but knew he wouldn't let her go until she did - until she knew he wouldn't let her go.

Tentatively Iris slid her hands beneath his cassock, revelling in the heat of him, trying to absorb it through her skin. She was unable to imagine that, only a short time ago, it had been absent from his body, that he had been cold and pale as Death's mount.

He'd been less than an hour old when she'd first held him. Now, less than an hour after his rebirth, she held him again. His fingers curled at her waist, gathering the fabric of her dress into his fists as his deep, slow breaths resonated in her ear, low and calming woodwinds against the rapid percussion of his heart. He kissed the top of her head, tilted her face up to kiss her cheeks and, chastely, her mouth. Iris's eyes fluttered closed as they always did, locking secret passion behind a fine cage of lashes, lest the virtuous gestures be imbued with it, blessed with it, in view of the meddlesome and misunderstanding.

". . .Excuse us, Sofie," he said quietly as he pulled back, not taking his gaze from Iris's. "My sister and I have a great many things to discuss."

Iris felt the girl pass behind her, heading this time for the kitchen. Justin took his sister's hands in his and led her towards the stairs.

* * *

Iris had sat with her elbows resting on her knees and her fingers pressed to her lips as if in prayer, as she'd listened to her brother's account of the goings-on of the previous night. Strangely, the news of Norman's death did not affect her as she'd thought it would. She had protected him, kept him pacified as best she could, but it had been his choice, his clear-minded, brave and very foolish choice to come between Justin and his destiny. Her mourning, she supposed, would come with time, but now she had neither time nor sadness to spare. Standing up, she began to pace the room - Justin's - as the gears in her mind turned with their composed frenzy.

"We have to leave," she muttered, calculating how long it would take them to pack the barest essentials. "The police will be here. That they haven't come already is a blessing—"

"Don't worry about the police," he brother interrupted, still sitting calmly on the edge of his bed.

Iris turned to look at him in confusion. "But Justin—"

"Things will be handled," he assured her. "Everything will be smoothed over and taken care of."

"Smoothed over?" Iris repeated, incredulous at his nonchalance. "People _died,_ Justin."

"Carnivals can be dangerous things," Justin shrugged. "Full of dangerous people. Abnormal, resentful people. Let us pray for their souls."

"But they saw you!"

"Really, Iris," he said patiently. "Do you think all the people of New Canaan will believe the eyes of a few frightened and delirious Okies, bewitched by an institution of trickery and the elevation of false idols? Which will they believe: that I, who has given them all that society refused to, who has baptized and saved them, chose at random to cull my flock of a handful of souls? or that a colony of lepers and misguided outcasts pandering sin sought to bring the people's God to His knees?"

With an uneasy sigh, Iris sat down beside him on the bed, pursed her lips and studied the floor, noting for the first time a stain in the wood, an old watermark that from her present angle resembled the snarling jaws of a wolf. "And if you're wrong?"

"I am wrong," replied her brother, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Innately so. But I am correct."

She shook her head and closed her eyes, and mumbled something inaudible.

"What?" Justin asked.

Iris opened her eyes. Despite herself, they shone with unshed tears as she worried her bottom lip and swallowed roughly in an effort to collect the pieces of her voice. "I couldn't do it again, Alexsei. Not even for you. I couldn't lose you again."

"Irina—"

"Promise me. Promise me you'll take me with you."

_(I can't — Ask me — I can't)_ — "I promise."

Iris looked up at him, leaned into him, rested her head against his collar bone.

"Sofie said you were impatient," she told him. "Impatient to return, or for me to follow you?"

"Both," Justin admitted. "Neither. I feared meeting you halfway, that our souls would pass one another in the river and we would be unable to hold on to each other. Do you remember the strength of the current? and your fingers were so slippery. . ."

"I never let go of your hand. I thought when we reached the shore I would find that my fingers had gone through your palms. I couldn't imagine how else I had managed not to lose you. It was so cold, Alexsei. It's been so very cold." The river, their bed, and all of the molecules between them, tiny vacuums that enveloped unused words and incomplete actions - ate them up and held them in miniature mouths, splinters of Pandora's box, waiting to be opened and unleashed when hope bred and filled them to the brims of their lips.

Hope, in the shape of a flogger scented with his sweat and blood. Scraps in a scrapbook, and Iris had saved every clipping. Keepsakes, bound and biding their time. Keepsafes.

Iris lifted her head to glare at her brother.

"You made me ride the Ferris wheel," she said accusingly.

Justin opened his mouth, an argument teetering on the edges of his teeth, but he thought better of it and bowed his head in submission.

"_Prostite menya,_" he murmured, lifting her hand to kiss her fingertips.

"You called me a dried-up old spinster."

"_Prostite menya._"

"That woman at the carnival was right. You really have been a prick."

He flinched slightly, sincerity keeping a clip of laughter at bay. "_Prostite menya._" 

She took his face in her hands, forced his eyes to meet her own. "_Raskaivajtes'._"

Justin stared down at her for a moment, then dipped his head to kiss her softly, needfully, a touch of such long overdue sweetness that Iris thought her heart might burst with the quiet power of her soul's sudden respite. His fingers wove into her hair, picking out the pins that held it in place and letting them drop one by one onto the bed.

Gingerly, as if he were still wounded, she tugged his tattered cassock and shirt from his shoulders, then ran a finger down the crusted bark of the tree adorning his chest, trailing gooseflesh in her wake. The branches seemed to swell with his sharp intake of breath, looming over her pale hand as she pressed her palm to where they met over his newly healed heart.

His mouth moved down, following an invisible path from her lips to her abdomen as he move to kneel on the floor in front of her. The phantom feel of his kisses through the fabric of her clothes felt like little sparks in a chain reaction, the culmination of which had been repressed months in its forming.

His hands glided along her thighs, disappearing beneath her dress, seeking the tops of her stockings. He removed them one at a time, peeling the torn and bloodied silk down her legs, allowing it to caress her skin in place of his fingers. A frown marred his features as he took in the crosshatched scars and fresh cuts that netted her knees. "_Epitimiya,_" she muttered, harshness creeping into the only word of explanation she offered him. 

Justin held her gaze unfalteringly as he pressed his lips to every jagged line in silent reverance before rising once more, grazing the outline of her legs, catching hold of the hems of her skirt and slip. She stood with him, and was briefly lost in a fog of ivory and navy blue as he lifted both garments simultaneously over her head, so that she was nearly nude before him. Her underthings were discarded in but a few deft motions, and he drank in the sight of her like a hungry child taunted by a sweetshop window _(their first time, in her room - she'd never been observed so intensely)_. The fervency of his stare threatened then to undo what strength she had regained. When he nudged her gently back towards the bed she almost fell upon it; instead he caught and kissed her fiercely, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her flush against him even as he lowered her down onto the mattress. 

Iris's fingers fluttered down to the waistband of his pants. She was shaking so badly she wondered if she would ever get them unfastened. He aided her in that, at least, covering her hands with one of his own, steadying their quivers with the warm certainty that was so very much a part of him. The dual clatters of his shoes hitting the floor resonated through the room like a heartbeat. Her own was pounding, its rhythm making up for lost time, for skipped beats of lamented lost love. 

He drew the sheets over their bodies, creating a shadowy cove in which their only senses were touch, taste, scent and sound, for all the world blurred together in shades of gray. Salt skin, and the tang of colorless blood. His voice, rendered inarticulate from yearning, shivering against her neck. The quickness of her breaths. The familiarity of his weight atop her, of the planes and contours of his flesh; of his desire for her, once thought snuffed out, but now clear and evident in the warm amber smell of him, in the hot throb of him between her thighs. A low-toned cry broke from her lips as again, at last, he was inside her, and tenderness gave way to sudden and demanding need. Her legs tightened around him, pulling him in deeper, as her fingertips urgently kneaded his painted back. 

He did as she wished, as he could not help but do. Desperate like the tide sucking at the shoals he moved over her, within her, crashing against her like waves against a rocky coast _(Row for shore)_. Lost in a riptide of emotion, Iris allowed herself to be pulled under, finding breath only when he kissed her and shared his own. 

Arching against him, she felt the flutter begin in her stomach and start to spread through her limbs, tautening her spine, bunching the muscles of her calves, curling her toes until her feet ached with the tension. Her arms strained to hold and impel him at once, the imperitive rocking of his hips, the assault of his tongue and teeth at her throat, her breasts, the almost painful pressure of his fingertips digging into her thigh as he held her impossibly closer. With a gasp and a tremor the flutter caught fire, burning through her in exquisite conflagration as his name found its home in the ardent dark of her voice. Through the flames she felt him trembling, and with her mouth upon his pulse she coaxed from him a violent shudder and a groan of hellish rapture _(Irina. . .)_.

* * *

Moments ticked past in sweet surreality, and both remained motionless as their bodies gradually calmed to smoldering embers stoked by their slowing breaths, until lightheadedness required they emerge from their hidden hollow of muggy heat and passion. Iris closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as she surfaced, cool air rushing her skin, her lungs, as her brother relaxed against her with welcome heaviness, pillowing his head upon her breast. She traced her fingers idly along the branches that barred his back, noting the slight ridges of his tattooed skin, following them like mountains in relief on a globe. 

"I fell under a shadow," Justin quietly confessed, sounding at once weary and renewed. "All I could see was the boy. Even in my dreams he masked your face. Where you should have been with a caress I only saw him with a blade. Where I should have felt you" - His hand cupped her thigh as he hitched his hips, making her gasp again - "I pushed you away. Where I should have spoken, I was silent. My greatest mistake. . ." He sighed into the crook of her neck, nuzzled the skin there in loving remorse. Iris combed her fingers soothingly through his hair. 

"But I have learned," he continued, his palm following the curve of her hip. "I have been shown the way. Our beloved Sofie has put an end to that blindness, has put so many things into perspective. She has chosen wisely." He pulled back to look his sister in the face. "I have seen Hell," he whispered, brushing a thumb along her crown. "Heaven cannot hold a candle to its flames. And it will treat you like a queen. The end of days marks only the beginning of nights. We will build a temple, Irina. We will build it together." 

Wordlessly Iris wrapped him up in her arms, holding him tightly _(You are forgiven)_. 

What she saw as she looked over his shoulder made her blood halt in her veins. Feeling her stiffen, Justin raised his head and followed her gaze. 

Sofie stood in the doorway, an expression of mingled indifference and curiosity further sharpening her features. An instinctual dread filled Iris's mind - no one had ever caught them like this, seen them this way. So many times she had envisioned the possibility, envisioned Norman's face, or Rose's, or Eleanor's, looking on in horror at the great and pious Brother Justin Crowe entangled naked in his bed with his own sister. The consequences they would reap, the condemnation. . . 

But Sofie's face was unlike any Iris had imagined. It was not twisted in disgust, nor was any hint of revulsion apparent in her still-black eyes. She looked for all the world like a child woken by a nightmare, who tarried at her parents' threshold awaiting the solace of an invitation. 

Justin looked down at Iris, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Mother may I?" he asked. 

Iris had not forgotten the game. "Yes you may." 

He dropped a lingering baptismal kiss to her brow before withdrawing from her body to lie on his side, facing her. Iris did the same, leaving just enough space between them for a third. 

Sofie slipped off her shoes at the foot of the bed, then crawled over the sheets to join her father and aunt atop the covers. She curled up fetal, her back against Justin's chest, her forehead scant inches from Iris's. Justin wrapped an arm protectively around both women. Iris reached up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind Sofie's ear, and rested her hand lightly on the girl's warm cheek. 

Suddenly exhausted by the past two days' events, Iris closed her eyes, unable to recall a time when she had felt as secure, or the connection between them as strongly. No jealousy, no rivalry. No struggle, no shame. One word echoed in her mind as she drifted off to sleep: Salvation. Salvation, against the backdrop of a tree-shaped sun, its trunk and braches reaching clear to the desert sky. Heaven could not hold a candle to its flames. 

When Atom's rib birthed the bride of the Antichrist, so too would this nuclear family, this murder of Crowes, be saved in the molten bunker of the earth.

* * *

_To be continued. . ._

¹ _And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. . ._ Revelation 6:8

The Fine Print - It could end here. . .but I identify most with Sofie, and I say it's not over yet. At least two more parts, probably not as long as this one, but beyond those I'm just going to take it one chapter at a time and see how things work out. If the wonderful folk over at Crowe House B&B keep hitting me with Walls of inspiration through their own remarkable talents. . ."Nothing can stop us now!"

_Vy umershi bez menya_ - you died without me  
_Prostite menya_ - forgive me  
_Raskaivajtes'_ - repent  
_Epitimiya_ - penance 


	3. III

Iris stirred lazily, enjoying the wash of the warm sheets against her skin, a smile coming to her lips - she couldn't quite recall, in the misted realm between dreams and lucidity, precisely why she felt so contented, but she gave her heart leave to be cradled by the feeling nonetheless, knowing the rarity of the moment and wishing to savor it for as long as she was allowed to.

That ended up, as it usually did, being not as long as she would have liked. The cradle tipped over when she opened her eyes, spilling the morning back into her head in a jumble of memories. Justin, dead and alive and wanted both ways; Sofie, called home to darkness and joy. And though the bed Iris slept in was hot, the sources of that heat were absent: neither her brother nor her niece were where they had been when had last closed her eyes.

She remembered awkward mornings, when she or Justin would slip silently from whomever's bed they had occupied the night before, when acknowledgement of their nocturnal deeds seemed too onerous an undertaking. Guilty mornings, whose frequency had waxed and waned throughout the years. Had he left her again in the remnants of his shame? But that shame, he had professed, had been for this, only this - that he had not woken with her always. And what of Sofie? Sofie who had held the hiltless blade, Sofie who was young and beautiful and his daughter?

Iris left the bed and found her brother's robe still hanging by its hook on the door - she must have slept through his dressing for the day. Pulling it on, she was unable to keep a sigh from escaping her anxious lips as his scent and a stark need to see him again, to feel him by her side and reaffirm his existence, enveloped her.

If the slant of the sun through the curtains was anything to go by, it was late in the afternoon. Justin was usually in his study about this time, but today had been far from usual. Knotting the sash of his robe around her waist, she exited his bedroom, then padded silently down the stairs, skipping the step second from the top that never failed to betray a trespasser with a complaintive creak. She hadn't quite reached the bottom when voices drifted from the dining room, her brother's and another's, alien to her ears.

Iris's heart knotted together with her stomach. Another meeting she was not privy to, another shadow she could not see into beyond the light of her own much-dimmed nimbus. His promises had been meaningless, teething rings to distract from her discomfort but not assuage it. Nothing had changed.

And yet, Iris found as she stepped into the hallway, the sliding doors that led to the room were open; but she reined in her hope, knowing that this oversight did not necessarily imply an invitation. Not wanting to be cut out of the conversation before she had even entered into it, she tarried near the doors, unseen, and listened.

"Reverend, you must understand. The reports say that you had some sort of. . .episode. . .while riding the Ferris wheel. Witnesses claim that you seemed to be in a great deal of pain, that your eyes turned black, and then you tore off your cassock, revealing a large tattoo of a tree on your torso. The ride malfunctioned - some say it stopped at your command - and then you tore off into the crowd, into the tent of a healer by the name of. . ." There was a pause as the speaker presumably consulted his notes. ". . .Benjamin Saint John. They say you cut a swathe through half-a-dozen folk with a reaping hook before going after the healer himself. Now I'll admit, some of these accusations seem to be the product of mass hysteria, the eyes and the like, but they all of 'em say that it was you, Reverend, that you done these things."

"You've seen the atrocities Hollywood can produce. Lon Chaney makes himself believably grotesque for every role. Amos and Andy blackface for a living. Paint and glue is all it takes, gentlemen, and with the blessed success of my ministry, my face is hardly an obscure one with little to go on for copying."

Iris bit down on her bottom lip. So he was not going to excuse his actions - he was not going to take responsibility for them at all.

A chair creaked as the other man shifted uncomfortably. "Be that as it may—"

"Brother Varlyn," Justin interrupted him (Iris wondered when Stroud had returned, and where he had been, if not seeing to herself or Sofie), "if you would be good enough to fetch Levi Tracey? He's posted at the gate."

Heavy footsteps led out of the dining room as Stroud obeyed. Iris flattened herself against the wall so that she wouldn't be seen as he passed through the hallway near the front of the house, but the hulking man didn't so much as glance in her direction, set determinedly upon his task.

Iris had her own to undertake _(I can protect you)_.

Pulling Justin's robe more tightly around her shoulders, she affected a dazed, sleepy look, one that begged to be caught off guard, and entered the dining room.

Eight stony eyes eyes shifted in her direction. Justin waited a beat before allowing his gaze to follow. Upon sight of her, a smile that quickened her heart spread across his features.

Alexsei.

"Iris," he said, "awake at last."

Slowly, she came to stand near his chair, and frowned, brow furrowed in confusion, at the policemen gathered in their home. There were four in total, though only one - whom she recognized as Roy Fiske, the San Benito county sheriff - was seated at the table opposite Justin. Sofie was nowhere to be seen. "What's going on?"

"My sister hasn't been feeling well," Justin explained to the officers. "Last night was very trying on her nerves."

"Ah," Fiske cleared his throat. "We're very sorry to hear that, Miss Crowe. But if you wouldn't mind - there's a few questions we'd like to ask you about your brother's activities last night."

Iris blinked at him, feigning puzzlement, and shook her head. "I don't understand - his activities?"

Fiske exchanged a glance with the deputy to his right, then looked again to Justin. "Reverend, if you could excuse us for a moment—"

"Nonsense," said Justin, extending an arm to grasp Iris's hand. "My sister and I have no secrets between us, Mister Fiske. Iris, these upstanding men of the law believe I slaughtered five members of my congregation last night, including Norman Balthus."

Eyes waking, widening with horror, mouth parting in shock. ". . .What?" she breathed.

If Fiske had fur, it would have stood on end. "Now that's not entirely—"

"That's preposterous," Iris broke in, ignoring him. "That's _insane,_ Justin wasn't even at the carnival last night!"

"Miss Crowe, the reports all say that you were there with him, that you two spoke, were seen on the Ferris wheel together."

"That _monster_ was _not_ my brother!" She felt Justin's hand tighten around her own. "I knew it the minute he claimed I would ride the Ferris wheel with him. I'm deathly afraid of heights - do you honestly think my own brother would force something like that on me?" Now it was her turn to squeeze, her nails digging into his palms.

"But you went along with it?"

Iris laughed as if the question were the most absurd thing she had ever heard. "What other choice did I have? To expose him as an imposter, to be seen trying to claw my brother's face off? in front of the migrants, the children? and with the guards none the wiser, after what happened with Norman—" Her voice broke on her former guardian's name. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, and found that the tears came easily. "I didn't know what to do, other than wait until the ride was over, and then try to explain things to Brother Stroud and hope to high Heaven he didn't think I was crazy."

"If that was the case, didn't you wonder where your real brother was?"

"Of course I did!" Iris snapped. "After that. . .that _man_ took off running, I couldn't find Brother Stroud, so I went back to the house. I found Justin in bed, asleep. I couldn't wake him up at first, I thought that he'd been. . ." She trailed off, took a shuddery breath. "But he was just drugged, thank God."

"Why didn't you call the police?"

"A person doesn't always think clearly in stressful situations, Mister Fiske. I was simply too concerned for my brother's welfare to think of it."

"Are you aware of what happened at the carnival after you left?"

"Yes." She swallowed, allowing her distraughtness at the memory of those hours to show in her face. "Our maid, Sofie, informed me. She had gone down to the camps earlier in the evening, and returned to the house not long after I did. She didn't see what happened, but she heard. . .the poor dear will never forgive herself for taking the evening off. It was one of her duties, you see, to look after Norman. . ." Again Iris shook her head. "How dare you. How _dare_ you accuse my brother of murdering our own _father!_ Justin is a man of God!"

Justin rose from his chair and placed a consolatory arm around her shoulders. "There, there, dear. Calm yourself."

Fiske looked skeptically between the two siblings, and seemed about to say something when the sound of the front door opening stifled his words. A moment later, Varlyn Stroud appeared in the dining room, one hand clasped around the arm of a nervous-looking migrant.

"Ah," Justin smiled. "Brother Levi. You were stationed at the gate four nights ago, is that correct?"

The man shifted, twisting his hat nervously in his hands. "Uh, yessir, I was. Me an' a few other folks - Caleb an' Rufus an'—"

"And you saw something out of the ordinary?"

Tracey reared back a step like a spooked horse, raising his hands in surrender. "No sir! I mean yessir - I mean, that is. . .I don't know what I saw, sir."

"Try to describe it," Justin said patiently. Tracey hesitated. "Please," he urged.

". . .A man in a car, I ain't never seen him before - he told me to open the gate."

"And you obeyed him? why?"

Tracey swallowed, his gaze shifting around the room as he inwardly debated with himself over the validity of the phrase "speak of the devil." "Somethin' about him weren't right. His eyes. . .his eyes were black as tarred marbles, an' he. . ."

"Go on."

"I ain't never felt nothin' like him before, not in my whole life. That man weren't like any kind o' man I ever met, an' I never wanna meet another like 'im."

"Aside from his eyes, what did he look like?"

Tracey shrugged. "White. Grayish hair, long - a bit like that German feller's, that smart one. Fifty, maybe, fifty-five. Couldn't tell how tall he were, on account o' him bein' in the car."

Justin nodded. "Thank you, Brother Levi. Your testimony is invaluable to me. Brother Varlyn?"

Stroud produced a weathered postcard from his pocket and dropped it on the table in front of Sheriff Fiske. Upside-down to her though it was, Iris could see that it depicted a man dressed in a tuxedo and top hat, holding two limp white bundles in his hands - chickens?

"A acquaintance of mine," Justin explained, "a Mister Wilfred Talbot Smith, gave this to me a few weeks ago. The man in the picture is called Henry Scudder. He's a carnival geek, and the father of this 'Benjamin Saint John'. An old friend of Scudder's, Smith cautioned me about the man's mental instability and dislike of me - I believe he and the boy are rather overzealous Baptists. I paid heed to Smith's warning, of course, and tightened my own security, understandably believing that Scudder and his son, if they wished to cause me harm, would do so only to me I never once imagined that they would conspire so deeply against my ministry, that they would hurt - _kill_ - so many, in the name of destroying all the good we have worked for here. . ." He sighed, shook his head sadly.

Fiske held the picture up for Tracey to see. "This him?"

Tracey blanched, and his eyes grew wide as saucers as he nodded. "He's the one. He's the one I saw."

_Scudder,_ Iris thought, her head filling with images of scorched flesh, of blunt teeth ripping apart gristle, spooning marrow into a carrion-stained mouth.

"If you knew this man and his son were carny folk," asked Fiske, returning his attention to Justin as he pocketed the postcard, "why did you allow the carnival into New Canaan?"

"That was my doing," Iris confessed. "God forgive me, I didn't know - oh, Justin, I'm so sorry!" A part of her meant it. The apologies of the morning had been his to her, but she was not without her own to make. She wondered how aware he was of that, how long he would wait for her to return the gesture. As he ran his hand along her upper arm, dragging his fingertips over the bunched fabric of a too-large sleeve, she knew that the answers were Very, and Not long.

Yet he was her brother - Alexsei Belyakov, Justin Crowe, the Usher of Destruction - and despite his greed found gratification in the struggle. She had known that about him since she'd been twenty-one years old, when she'd learned to tell the incredibly harsh distinction between impatience and lust for anticipation.

"Shhh," he half-soothed, half-hissed. "None of that. You acted in ignorance. The blame lies with me for not mentioning it sooner - I wanted to spare you worrying, and instead I have brought grief to all of my disciples."

Fiske pursed his lips and squinted slightly, as if attempting to hold on to a fleeing thought. "And the tattoo?"

Justin took his arm from around his sister and, without haste, began to unbutton his cassock. Iris held her breath, sucked her bottom lip into her mouth as the groping branches of the tree, now clean and pure sable, came into view. She looked to the policemen, to Tracey, for their reactions—

—but there was barely a change in their demeanors. They couldn't see it.

"Well, I'd say that pretty much settles it," said Fiske, rising from his seat. "We'll be putting out a search for Saint John and this Scudder feller."

"See that you do," Justin agreed, nodding once. "Keep me informed of your progress. It is my most fervent prayer that we will see the perpetrators of these acts brought to justice. I trust you gentlemen can show yourselves out?"

"Of course." Fiske replaced his hat upon his head, tipped it. "Good day to you, Reverend, Miss Crowe." He nodded at Stroud and Tracey ("Brother Levi, you're free to go"), then followed the other officers out of the room.

Once she heard the front door close, Iris took a step away from her brother as he buttoned up his cassock and folded her arms across her chest. "Where's Sofie?"

Justin smiled pleasantly. "She's having a rest up in her room. The poor dear did tucker herself out this morning, and she didn't want to be dozing off during tonight's sermon."

_Why her room?_ Iris wanted to ask, but her eyes shifted to Stroud, who was staring at her with a smugness that made her skin crawl. Apparently whatever benignity that had infected his mind the previous night had been cured.

"Not to worry," Justin assured her, sensing her misgivings in the way that only he could. "We had a little chat while you were sleeping. I would have woken you, but you looked so peaceful, almost like you weren't sleeping at all. . ." He cupped her cheek tenderly in one hand. Iris tightened her jaw to stave off a shiver at his words _(He said we must have been blind not to see it)_. Things _had_ changed between them. . .hadn't they?

"Come," he said, his eyes lighting with a sudden enthusiasm as he took hold of her hand and began to lead her away from the dining room. "I have something to show you."

Iris wetted suddenly dry lips, and made no move to follow him until he tugged her insistantly along. When they were almost to the hallway, Justin paused and turned to look at her, ran his eyes slowly and consideringly over the length of her body.

"It suits you," he murmured approvingly of his robe.

Iris glanced over her shoulder just in time to catch the curious frown creasing Varlyn Stroud's features before Justin guided her out of the room.

* * *

Roy Fiske slammed his truck door shut and allowed his body to sag wearily against the sun-warmed seat. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes, rubbing the pain of sudden brightness from them as he rebeheld the sky, feeling as a dreamer does having narrowly escaped some terrible nightmare.

The passenger's side door opened. "That's it?" demanded his nephew, climbing in, and not for the first time Fiske regretted having promised his dying brother to look after the boy, turn him into something to be proud of. He was too smart for this job, too inquisitive - which made him not smart enough for it at all.

"Of course that ain't it," Fiske snapped, pulling out his handkerchief and wiping the back of his neck with a defeated sigh. "But that's all we can do."

The young man gawped predictably at him. "All we can do, are you shittin' me? Did you see the look on that Okie's face in there, yes-sirin' an' no-sirin' like a goddamn Stepin Fetchit? What about that maid? - we didn't talk to her. And ain't we gonna look for that Smith character?"

Too damned inquisitive and not smart enough.

Fiske made an exaggerated show of surveying their surroundings. "I don't see him nowhere."

"But Sheriff—"

"Goddamn it, Eran, we can't touch this guy!"

"Who, Crowe? Why the hell not?"

Fiske only shook his head, wiped at his face with his handkerchief, pulled it back to glance briefly at its fresh scarlet stain.

"Uncle Roy, we—" Eran's words were harnessed by his eyes as he caught sight of the bloodied handkerchief, his face a darkening cloud of confusion. "What in the hell. . .?"

Fiske crumpled up the square of fabric and shoved it tremulously into his shirt pocket. One red corner peeked above the edge of its cloth cage like a macabre carnation. "We can't touch him," he said again, sounding more palliated than made uneasy by the thought, as he started up the truck and shifted it into gear.

* * *

"Fill 'er up. And get those couple o' cannisters in the back, too." Samson handed over a wad of bills to the young roustie seated beside him, who in turn passed them to a surly-looking gas station attendant, identified by the name 'Buz' stitched clumsily onto his shirt. The man looked distrustingly between the money and the carnival convoy, eventually decided the cash was genuine enough, then nodded at the younger coverall-clad fellow standing ready at the pump.

"Dumb clucks," Samson muttered under his breath, staring out the window at the desert stretching from the false light of the gas station to the violet horizon that looked to be a thousand miles away. They'd reached Utah by sundown, just as he'd hoped, but few victories as of late had felt as triumphant as they ought to have. The presence of Osgood in a place he never should have inherited - the driver's seat of the lead truck - only made that fact even more miserably clear. Samson didn't protest when the boy left the truck, mumbling something about grabbing a drink from inside and making sure they didn't get stiffed for gas.

He'd known Clayton Jones for fifteen years solid, had seen the man up through the bottom of a bottle and down in the dirt the morning after. He was glad, at least, that he would never have to see the man under that same dirt. And Sofie, whom he'd known even longer, whose name had been the last word Samson heard Jonesy utter before the head roustabout had shot off to play the ever-lovin' knight in spit-polished armor. He used to think those two were meant to be together - he and everyone else who had eyes, even that blind bastard Lodz - and now, he supposed, they finally were.

Looking through the side mirror at Libby Dreifuss a few vehicles back, who had climbed out of her daddy's car to stare up and down the road, searching for a highway ghost, Samson wondered if she thought the same. He hoped not. That girl was too sweet by half to go through life only half-loved. Maybe that wasn't a fair thought - he didn't know the whole story between her and Jonesy, and they had seemed close as any true loves - but facts were facts, and one fact was that Jonesy had been hung up on Sofie for the better part of three years. It took more than a few weeks of fussing from a baby vamp to patch so wide an unrequited hole.

The same went for Hawkins, for that and many other reasons. Ten times trouble didn't even begin to sum up the impact of that kid on every life he touched, and Samson for one had been more than happy - and not a little relieved - when Sofie had taken a powder and nipped whatever had been growing between them in the bud. Not that it had done her much good, her or her lovesick, griefsick, stricken-down swain lying cloven-bellied in the trailer bed of his predecessor. Ah, who knew? if she hadn't left. . .

Samson sighed and shook his head. If he'd learned nothing else from Babylon, it was that dwelling on hindsight got a man about as far as a wooden nickel in the cootch tent. Instead his thoughts turned to Hawkins, and the boy's possible demeanor upon waking. Samson had ordered the carnival quickly onward for more than solely their own safety.

_If she's dead. . .then God help 'em. Each an' every last one of 'em in this valley._

Not God, but a Nazirite, and not yet a blinded judge. That was a war Samson was not willing to aid, or allow the rest of the carnival to be roped into. You could only know a man so much - and you could only ask so much of him. The preacher had picked a number for what he'd done. Anything beyond that wasn't justice: it was murder, naked and raw.

He fished a box of matches and a hope chest from his inside jacket pocket and shook out a cigarette. Striking a match on the scuffed interior of the truck, he dropped it in his lap mid-flare as Osgood heaved himself, frantic and panting, back into the cab.

"Cast a kitten, kid!" Samson exclaimed, beating out the match before it could do more than singe the inseam of his trousers. "Who lit the fire under your pants and why're you tryin' to light one under mine?"

"You gotta listen to this," Osgood puffed, twisting the key in the ignition with one hand and scanning the radio dial with the other. Static whistled and crunched through the speakers as stabs of brassy jazz and serial dramas were cut short by the roustie's frenzied search, until he finally passed one resonant station, paused, and slowly turned the nob back to find it again.

_"—and I say unto you we will not be reduced by these cowardly acts, we will not see our numbers further lessened because of them! For that is _their_ will, and their ungodly arrogance, the False Prophet who leads them to believe that it is _their_ place to smite! That by their hands they may cast upon us all the wrath that only the will of God can mete out!"_

The cold cigarette hung by the moistness of Samson's lower lip for a second before it dropped from his mouth to land, forgotten, in the side well of the truck. He couldn't be hearing right, it wasn't possible - he'd seen the man dead as Dillinger with his own two eyes! He'd had a knife embedded in his heart, for crying out loud! There was no _way. . ._

_"And I can only pray, brothers and sisters, that you will find it in your hearts and in your souls not to pay heed to that same beckoning devil of hollow and delusive retribution, to forgive these wretched men, to pity those who have fallen from our Savior's encircling arms; to forgive their envy of you, you who have found the strength to cling for dear eternal life to the bosom of your Lord God, where you and your progeny have grown strong upon the virtuous milk of divine obedience."_

. . .but there was no mistaking that voice, that metallic rumble, a voice of freshly forged - or reforged - steel.

Samson's gaze went to Osgood, whose eyes mirrored his own in their dread and disbelief.

"What do we do?" the boy asked, perched so near to the edge of his seat it was a wonder he didn't topple over into the pedals.

Samson looked helplessly again at the radio dial. He swallowed, his throat parched as the plainslands.

_"Our work here is far from finished, brothers and sisters. Saint John who dreamt the Revelation has scarcely begun to close his leaden eyes for slumber. He will not rest in peace."_

". . .Wake Hawkins."

* * *

_To be continued. . ._

The Fine Print - Many thanks to Drea dearest for giving this a twice-over and glutting too-often-insecure little George with feedback throughout. ♥


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